Satellite photos give a bird’s-eye view of Ukraine crisis

By ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Widely available commercial satellite imagery of Russian troop positions bracketing Ukraine provides a bird’s-eye view of an international crisis as it unfolds. But the pictures, while dramatic, have limitations. High-resolution images from commercial satellite companies like Maxar in recent days showed Russian troop assembly areas, airfields, artillery positions and other activities on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border and in southern Belarus as well as on the Crimean Peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. But they do not reveal what Russia intends to do with those forces.